It has been revealed that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) used Artificial Intelligence drones to target Palestinian militants in May of this year, making it one of the first-ever uses of artificial intelligence in combat.
The news comes just months after the first-ever use of artificial intelligence in warfare came to light, in which Turkish AI drones are alleged to have been used in both Libya and in Azerbaijan.
It is said that the IDF used a swarm of AI drones in the Gaza Strip and that these drones launched deadly missile strikes during the brief conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Artificial Intelligence in warfare is highly controversial for a number of reasons. Firstly, the AI may hit targets mistakenly, secondly, the AI may not adhere to international laws on combat and thirdly, it dehumanises conflict, meaning an aggressor can psychologically separate themselves from killing. Some believe that allowing an army to psychologically separate themselves from killing can worryingly make killing much more easy, and an army potentially less inhibited in their actions.
The IDF has stated that they believe AI allows them to sift through information more quickly and bring conflict to an end faster.
Zachary Kallenborn, a research affiliate with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, previously speaking to Live Science, said of AI weapons:
"What's potentially new here are autonomous weapons incorporating artificial intelligence. I'm not surprised this has happened now at all. The reality is that creating autonomous weapons nowadays is not all that complicated. Current AIs are typically heavily dependent on what data they are trained on. A machine usually doesn't know what a cat or dog is unless it's fed images of cats and dogs and you tell it which ones are cats and dogs. So there's a significant risk of error in those situations if that training data is incomplete, or things are not as simple as they seem. A soldier might wear camo, or a farmer a rake, but a farmer might wear camo too, and a soldier might use a rake to knock over a gun turret."
Interestingly, Kallenborn, in the same interview, explicitly warned about the use of swarms of AI drones, as Israeli has now used, saying:
"What I find most significant about the future of autonomous weapons are the risks that come with swarms. In my view, autonomous drone swarms that can kill people are potentially weapons of mass destruction."
[h/t: IFL Science]
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